By Emily Dickinson
Emily Dickinson
 Born 1830, Massachusetts
 Came from a respectable academic family
 She was well educated at both Amherst College and Mount
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Holyoke Female Seminary
After suffering from depression, she became reclusive
She began writing poetry in the 1850’s
The subjects of most of her poems are concepts such as love,
death and nature
By 1970, she was dressing only in white and declining to see most
visitors
She wrote nearly 1800 poems, but only 10 of them were published
in her life time
Died 1886, Massachusetts
Structure
 Sweet – safe –Houses uses a ballad stanza structure
with quatrains except for the first stanza
 Emily Dickinson often used slant rhyming, for example
‘come’ and ‘tomb’, however she does not follow the
same rhyming pattern in every stanza
 She is also famous for her use of dashes throughout
her poems, which can emphasize ideas and forces the
words into a rhythm. Dickinson was heavily
influenced by English hymns so the dashes could
represent the rise and fall of the words if the poem was
set to music
Themes
 One of the main themes in this poem is the
juxtaposition between the idea of the rich, prosperous
house in which the speaker is living, and the cold
reality, without the comfort normally associated with a
home. The oppressive nature of the household is
represented by words linked to death, for example
‘muffled coaches’ and ‘tomb’
 Throughout the poem the word home is never used,
because the speaker views the house as only a building,
and not a home
Language
Sibilance
sounds
bitter, like
the speaker
is spitting
out the
words
Sealed off
from the
world
Ambiguous
dashes, primarily
to emphasize and
seperate ideas
Sweet—safe—Houses—
Glad—gay—Houses—
Sealed so stately tight—
Lids of Steel—on Lids of Marble—
Locking Bare feet out—
Reference to
No relaxing in
this household
coffin. Being in
the house is
claustrophobic
like a coffin
Language
Expensive
fabrics, but
no real
comfort
Brooks of Plush—in Banks of Satin
Not so softly fall
As the laughter—and the whisper
From their People Pearl—
Links people
to nature,
pearls in
clams are
expensive but
isolated
Brooks and
banks sound like
nature,
juxtaposing the
man made
materials
Contrast
between the
sounds of a
happy home
and this
house
Language
They don’t
want anything,
even sickness
or death to
come and ruin
the image of
prosperity that
the house
creates
No Bald Death—affront their Parlors—
No Bold Sickness come
To deface their Stately Treasures—
Anguish—and the Tomb—
They only have
stately treasures,
nothing with
emotional or
sentimental value
Language
Hum by—in Muffled Coaches—
Lest they—wonder Why—
Any—for the Press of Smiling—
Interrupt—to die—
The hush in the
house makes it
seem like
someone has
died, linking the
house to a
funeral
Ambiguous ending
to the poem
The depression in
the inhabitants of
the house is hushed
up to keep up
appearances
No one wants true
feelings or any
unhappiness to
interrupt the
pretence of
happiness
Thanks for Watching